Successful Scale-Up Support for Start-Ups in Industrial Biotechnology: A Multiple Case Study on Scale-Up Support Ecosystems

Abstract

Industrial biotechnology is labelled by the European Commission as one of the six key enabling technologies to fight climate change. Industrial biotechnology is a sector where biocatalysts (cells or enzymes) are used to convert renewable feedstocks (e.g. sugars) or even waste into valuable compounds such as renewable chemicals or food (ingredients). Unfortunately, the road from invention to commercial production is long in industrial biotechnology, and most biotechnologies that look promising after laboratory development fail to cross the Valley of Death and reach industrial scale. Industrial biotechnology has a long technology development time before being commercialised, is capital intensive, has economies of scale, and usually produces bulk products with low profit margins requiring large industrial-scale production for economic viability. Scale-up support can facilitate scale-up towards industrial scale. Scale-up support was, for example, offered with the Bioprocess Pilot Facility at the Biotech Campus Delft, before its bankruptcy in November 2022. This bankruptcy occurred while being fully booked. This has left the Planet B.io - Biotech Campus Delft scale-up support ecosystem with a lot of potential. In an attempt to scientifically address this scale-up support problem, a knowledge gap was found on the verge of technical scale-up, industrial biotechnology, and scale-up support ecosystems. This led to the main research question: How can a scale-up support ecosystem for industrial biotechnology be best organised and operated?

To answer this, a multiple case study was conducted on the scale-up support ecosystems of Planet B.io - Biotech Campus Delft, Copenhagen, and Brightlands Chemelot. This case study was performed through desk research and semi-structured expert interviews with 3 different types of experts (ecosystem, technical scale-up and start-up expert) per ecosystem, resulting in 9 interviewees. This case study applies the Technological Innovation System (TIS) framework to a novel context and integrates it with the four identified scale-up support elements (technical facilities \& services, funding \& business services, network formation \& coordination, and knowledge \& talent) offering a framework to study scale-up support ecosystems. This study identified the scale-up support requirements for industrial biotechnology. These scale-up support requirements are, among others, a flexible and fully-serviced shared piloting facility up until TRL 6 ($\approx$ 2000 L bioreactor), a lab- to pilot- and industrial-scale technical support service, investment planning service and help with raising funding. These should be offered within a scale-up support ecosystem using milestone-based billing as a preferred revenue model, whereas a government voucher system should be set up to pay for the lab- to pilot- and industrial-scale technical support service. Also, the most important stakeholders for a scale-up support ecosystem were identified, including multiple large corporations, government institutions, universities (and other types of education), suppliers, and service providers. Based on the findings, a roadmap for the development of the Planet B.io - Biotech Campus Delft scale-up support ecosystem was proposed, focusing on strengthening the network, knowledge, talent, and funding before offering a piloting facility and business services. This study contributes to the field with a framework to study scale-up support ecosystems as well as with practical recommendations for scale-up support ecosystems in industrial biotechnology and similar industries, identifying the scale-up support requirements, its business models and required stakeholders.